The Amazon Kindle Scribe was launched in 2022 and was released to compete against the Remarkable, Supernote, Onyx Boox, Bigme, and other dedicated e-notebooks. Amazon has had an uphill battle, since their competition had a five-year head start. The Scribes software was never powerful, although a flurry of firmware updates made it somewhat viable. In 2024, Amazon released a second-generation Scribe, and there wasn’t much to get excited about; the only upgrades were design, colors, and a new pen. The Scribe isn’t selling very well, and I would not be surprised if it were discontinued.
One downside of the Kindle Scribe is that it is just as expensive as other Kindle e-readers. The Scribe is not aimed at casual readers but professionals, students, or people who need to take digital notes while outside. The Scribe is double the cost of the Kindle Colorsoft, and if you spend over $400 on an e-notebook, a Remarkable provides better value at the same price. Boox and Bigme also have better pricing, in addition to selling e-notes with different screen sizes, and also run Google Android and have full access to the Play Store.
Let’s look at how bad it is for the Scribe right now. In the past month, the Kindle Paperwhite, Paperwhite Signature Edition, Kindle Colorsoft, and base Kindle sold over 10,000 units in the United States. Each e-reader costs between $100 and $229, while the Kindle Scribe only sold 1,000 units in the same period.
The United Kingdom is Amazon’s second-largest market for Kindle sales. The base Kindle and Kindle Paperwhite sold 5,000 units in the past month. The Paperwhite Signature Edition sold 2,000 units, while the Colorosft sold 500. The Kindle Scribe sold less than 100 units, while the original Scribe sold 200.
Meanwhile, the Kindle Colorsoft is unavailable in Canada, and prices tend to be high. The Kindle sold 2,000 units in the past month, the Kindle Paperwhite sold 5,000, the Paperwhite Signature Edition sold 1,000, and the Kindle Scribe sold 100.
The Scribe 2024 model has not been selling well, as the unit sales in the past 30 days show. I do not see a drastic turnaround in monthly sales in 2025. The only time the Kindle Scribe sells more units is when it goes on sale for special events, such as Mother’s Day, Prime Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday. However, the other Kindles also go on sale simultaneously and outsell the Scribe considerably.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.